Written by

Dan Feldman

Detroit Free Press Special Writer

Dan Feldman writes for the Detroit Pistons blog PistonPowered. His opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the Detroit Free Press nor its writers. PistonPowered writers will contribute a column every Friday at freep.com/pistons. Contact Dan anytime at pistonpowered@gmail.com or on Twitter @pistonpowered.

The 2013-14 Detroit Pistons are historically good at something.

Seriously.

No snark nor backhanded compliments (at least not yet). This 25-40 team is doing one thing absolutely right:

Grabbing offensive rebounds.

The only appropriate way to judge offensive rebounding is by percentage ó the number of offensive rebounds grabbed divided by number of missed shots. That way, a teamís offensive rebounding isnít artificially inflated by missing many shots nor deflated by making many.

The Pistons offensively rebound 31.1% of their missed shots, No. 1 in the NBA this season by a wide margin. The difference between the Pistons and the second-place Portland Trail Blazers is greater than the difference between Portland and the 15th-place Milwaukee Bucks.

Now, the Pistonsí mark of 31.1% ranks just 429th since the NBA began tracking rebounding on each side of the floor separately in 1973-74. But NBA teams have never been more focused on defensive rebounding. Leaguewide, offensive-rebounding percentage is at an all-time low (25.7%).

The Miami Heat particularly forgo crashing the offensive glass, in order to get back on defense and get into position to prevent offensive rebounds themselves. Itís not just the Heat, though. The whole league has trended in that direction.

And itís in that environment in which the Pistons are excelling.

Their offensive-rebounding percentage tops the league average by 5.4 percentage points, the 12th-best mark all-time.

Obviously, offensive rebounding alone does not make a great team. The all-time leader ó the 1994-95 Dallas Mavericks, who bested the league average by 7.5 percentage points ó went just 36-46. The 2001-02 Golden State Warriors, who went 21-61, also rank ahead of the Pistons on this list.

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But so do the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls, who went 72-10.

Offensive rebounding well helps teams win, but itís only one of many factors in a gameís result. The 2013-14 Pistons are lacking in other areas, but thereís no question they have this specific skill down pat.

And it turns out that itís an especially important skill to them.

The Pistons miss 55% of their shots, a higher mark than league average. Really, offensive rebounds are propping up their offense.

Detroit leads the league with 15.7% of its scoring coming on second-chance points.

On an individual level, Andre Drummond is absolutely destroying the offensive glass.

Drummond leads the league in offensive-rebounding percentage (17.3). The difference between Drummond and second-place Steven Adams matches the difference between Adams and 11th-place Joakim Noah.

Drummond is having the 20th-best offensive rebounding season of all time. Dennis Rodman holds the single-season record (20.8, with the San Antonio Spurs in 1994-95) and also holds the only two spots on the Pistonsí leader board above Drummond (18.1 in 1991-92 and 17.6 in 1988-89).

Drummondís offensive rebounds arenít going to waste, either. He leads the league with 348 second-chance points, well ahead of second-place Carmelo Anthonyís 283.

Greg Monroe grabs a strong 9.6% of available offensive rebounds, and Kyle Singler ranks highly at his position with an offensive-rebounding percentage of 5.0. (Thatís even better than Josh Smith, whose offensive rebounding percentage is a career-low 4.3, probably because heís spending too much time drifting away from the basket to shoot jumpers).

Interestingly, Tony Mitchell ranks better than all of them, with an offensive-rebounding percentage of 20.4, but he hasnít played enough qualify for any leader board. At least heís showing the potential to give Detroit another quality offensive rebounder, though.